


A Perfect Little Twist of Fate

by marieMTL14



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Getting Together, M/M, Separation Anxiety, Tyler used to be a fuck up and it scares Jamie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-28 18:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15054836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marieMTL14/pseuds/marieMTL14
Summary: Jamie de-aged, screamed at Tyler, then at Jordie. Highlight of this whole thing, though, it that he beat the young Stars at mini-sticks hockey. Story for the ages.





	1. A Perfect Little Twist

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Hunter Hayes' "Wild Card"
> 
> De-aging fics are my soft spot, gotta own it and share that with y'all!

Tyler spent a lot of time at the Benn’s apartment. He did live two floors down from them, so why have dinner alone when you have two bros so close, right? He would often drop by, grab a plate and food and chill in the living room with Jamie and Jordie, either playing video games or watching silly TV shows. It had a weirdly comforting rhythm to it and Tyler started to really like the life in Dallas, after all. He found his hockey again, he found friends and he was enjoying it all.

Jamie was a pretty weird guy. He had funky habits, awkward manners and some oddly blank stares sometimes but Tyler was working his way to really, really appreciate all that low-key, shy, weirdness. It was cute.

Anyway, all that weirdness was no reason for Jamie to disappear in his bedroom in the middle of a movie, without saying anything, and that’s exactly what he did a few minutes ago. Yeah, getting kicked out of the playoffs had been hard but he looked fine right before. After a while, Tyler even started to pay more attention to any noise coming from the hallway than to sassy Robert Downey Jr and that was saying a lot about how weird Jamie actually looked when he left the room.

When he craned his neck around to look at the closed bedroom door for the twentieth time in ten minutes, he caught Jordie’s eyes and they both simultaneously raised an eyebrow.

“I should go check on him,” Jordie suggested and Tyler nodded vigorously and kicked Jordie’s tight to make him get up faster. Jordie chuckled a little but Tyler could see the worry in the tightness around his eyes and his mouth.

Tyler fidgeted for maybe five minutes before he heard footsteps come back in the living room. He turned around to see Jordie carrying a tiny brown-haired boy, not older than three, in his arms. The toddler had obviously been crying: his cheeks were wet and he was scrubbing his eyes with small fists. Jordie was rocking him gently and murmuring some things Tyler only heard the end of.

“It’s okay, Jamie. We are good, see? We are home? And there’s Tyl–”

“That’s Jamie?!” Tyler stage-whispered while staring at Jordie but at the same time the baby started wailing and scrambling in Jordie’s arms to get higher and hide his face in the crook of his neck.

Jordie sent a frantic look Tyler’s way, like all the crying was freaking him out as much as it did Tyler, but then he froze. The baby must have been saying something because Jordie was rubbing careful circles on his back while he hiccupped and cried some more and nodded.

“Okay. Okay, Jamie” he finally said in a gentle voice. He walked around the living room and gently put the baby down in the armchair the farthest from Tyler where he ended up rolled in a thigh ball with his face hidden in the cushion. Tyler stared at him in disbelief – that was Jamie and he was crying – until Jordie spoke up.

“Hum. Tyler?” Tyler turned around to look at him, only to see Jordie looking at Jamie and he heard Jamie make a small agreeing hum. “Jamie– Jamie says he wants you to go home.”

“What? But he’s–”

“He is okay, he does that sometimes,” and added, only mouthing the words, I’m sorry, I’ll text you later and his pleading look made Tyler get up, a little stunned.

“I– Okay. Sorry if I–”

“No you’re fine. It’s just–”

“It’s okay,” Tyler said quickly before Jordie could finish. He was trying really hard to hide his hurt from rejection and his teary eyes. All crying babies had that effect on him, okay? But that was Jamie, obviously in distress, not wanting him and that stung. He slowly made his way to the kitchen table to grab his phone and his keys, trying to listen to the conversation in the living room. It was only warbled, teary baby talks and he couldn’t make out any of it. He knocked his forehead once on the front door before quickly shouting “Okay bye Jamie, bye Jordie. I’ll be right down if you need anyth–”

He heard tiny footsteps running his way and he barely had time to turn around before he had tiny hands on his thighs pushing him surprisingly hard. He had to catch himself on the doorframe to keep his balance.

“OUT!” the baby shrieked.

“Okay,” Tyler mumbled and he opened the door and closed it the fastest he could without snapping any fingers or feet in it.

He walked down the stairs with a bleary look and mechanically let himself in his apartment where he changed into his sleeping clothes. His mind was still a hundred percent on the small baby who just pushed him out of a door with way too much vigour in his tiny voice. He almost dropped his phone when it vibrated on the counter while he was brushing his teeth. It was a text from Jordie.

**pls dont worry. happens smtime and he will be back in few days. no idea what got into him tonite but hes fine now ill text you tmrw.**

Tyler chocked down a sob and dropped his phone on his bedside table after he finished in the bathroom. He got under the covers and although he did find sleep at some point, it was really fidgety and more tiresome than restful.

…

He was really disoriented when he woke up to a persistent knock on his front door. It took a few seconds before the events of the evening came back to him and he scrambled to his feet and ran across his apartment to almost rip his door open. The dogs lift their heads when he passed them in the living room but didn’t seem fazed by the sudden activity in the middle of the night, saying maybe too much about Tyler’s habits... He sighted in relief when he saw Jordie standing there with still-little-Jamie in his arm. The baby was calmer now, although Tyler could still see signs that he was crying not long ago.

“Sorry to wake you up, man. Jamie just–”

“Tyler!” Jamie shrieked, but this time excitedly. He wiggled his arms out of Jordie’s hold and shimmied in Tyler’s direction until his situation was so precarious that Tyler had no other choice but to grab him. The baby cooed happily and gently put his head on Tyler’s shoulder. Tyler noticed a little hysterically that Jamie was wearing a tiny pajama that was his size and had small dinosaurs on it.

“Jordie mean, Tyler. S’mean ‘n love you s’much and wanna sleep in you bed. Yes Tyler? Yes?”  He was babbling and Tyler had a hard time following all he was saying except that it sounded way happier than earlier.

“He was asking for you and even if I tried to explain to him that he was the one who kicked you out earlier he just cried and only stopped when I told him he could come down here and I am really sorry, man. I know it’s the middle of the night.”

Tyler was barely listening to Jordie at this point because the baby was still cooing happily in his ear and the only part he really got was the one where Jamie was asking for him. “It’s okay, Jordie. I wasn’t really sleeping, you know…”

“I can take him back and I know this is none of–”

“And the idea seemed to sound as awful to Tyler as it did to Jamie, who just started whimpering and crying again and Jesus they were in the hallway and it was one in the morning. “No Jordie, no Jordie!” the baby was sobbing.

Tyler rocked him gently and looked up at Jordie with pleading eyes. “It’s really, really fine, Jordie, and – Jamie, shhh, it’s okay – I really don’t mind.”

“I guess he wants just you right now and he hasn’t slept any and he really gotta and I think he will only do that with you so,” and Tyler could really see the tiredness around Jordie’s eyes and the slump in his shoulders. “We have stuff for this situation at our place – because like I said this happens – so just come up whenever and call me or text me–” Jordie said really fast while Jamie started batting at him with angry growls. “Love you, Jame,” he said softly right before he turned around and left. They had both been the source of Jamie’s fussiness and rejection and Tyler couldn’t help but wince a little. Babies could be so brutal…

…

Jamie calmed down enough to dose off and Tyler put him to bed next to him. The adrenaline was starting to crash in his system as well and it allowed him to kind of dose off as well, few minutes at the time.

…

He woke up for good when he felt Jamie move at his side. He almost jumped out of his skin but when he opened his eyes, he saw that Jamie was actually crawling towards him and he climbed on his chest to snuggle against him, his little nose tucked in the crook of his neck. The baby hummed happily and laid still for a while even if Tyler could tell he was not sleeping anymore.

Tyler was content with staying immobile like that and trying to match his breaths to the baby’s. Suddenly, Jamie jumped and lift his face to look at Tyler from very, very close.  

“Wan’see the coooowies, Ty!”

“Hey bud. What was that?”

“Wan’see the cows! Moo!”

“Cows? Where did you see cows? And what about breakfast with Jordie first, hum?” Tyler had been thinking about that only a moment before while they were still silent and he wasn’t expecting it to make Jamie fussy again.

 “Noooo,” he warbled. “Not wan’ Jo’die”

 “You don’t want to see your brother?”

 “No, ‘cause he mean. You da best!” he added, flashing him a toothy grin.

 “How come you didn’t want to see me last night then?”

 Jamie grabbed the comforter and rolled off Tyler to burry his face into it. “’Cause I takes care of you but I’s a baby and no wanna you see me!” Tyler only got parts of that muffled sentence.

“You take really good care of me, that’s true. But I also want to look after you, yeah? That why you came back last night?”

“Hum, hum,” Jamie agreed. “But we can see cows with no Jordie?” he added with his face falling a little, like he was scared Tyler would say no.

“I can try to find a place to see cows? But I may have to talk to Jordie for that. And he has clothes for you. So we have to go up to your place.”

Jamie growled a little and pushed himself up the bed until he was under Tyler’s arm, not too different from what a puppy would do when it wanted scratches. Tyler got up on one elbow and tickled the baby softly – adult Jamie hated it so Tyler went lightly on that, just in case. “Let’s go get us some food okay?” The baby nodded so Tyler got off the bed and picked him up with the blankets so he’d be all bundle up while they walked down the building’s hallways. He grabbed some shirt and pants on his way to the door and dropped them on Jamie’s face to make him giggle and swat at them. He grabbed his phone and his keys and climbed the two flights of stairs to the Benn’s apartment.

It was quite early but Tyler expected Jordie to be up. First, he wasn’t one to sleep in a lot, and second, having a baby Jamie was a pretty big stress factor. What he didn’t expect, though, was the big trunk in the middle of the living room. When Jamie saw it, he squealed happily and wiggled to be let down. He ran to the trunk and opened it. When he walked further in the living room, Tyler saw that it was full of baby clothes and toys, which was really, really good news for them. He even spotted a car seat in the corner of the room. They were indeed well prepared for this, which made him wonder how often it happened before.

When he looked up, he noticed for the first time that Jordie was looking at them from the kitchen with a really careful look. He smiled tightly at Tyler when their eyes met. Tyler tried to reassure him with his smile back but he knew very little would work.

“Tyler! Tyler look!” Jamie shrieked and that made Tyler look down at him again. “My hockey shirt! My fav’rite!” he said while holding a Canucks youth jersey in front of him.

Tyler fake-gasped loudly and clutched at his heart while being over dramatic. “What would that be, young Benn? A Canucks fan? Really? Breaking my heart, here, squirt.”

Jamie giggled. “Canucks best, Ty! But maybe I’mma wear the Stars shirt,” he said, and he picked up a victory green t-shirt out of the trunk. “’s too hot for tha big one!”

“I like that one a lot, Jame!” Tyler crouched down to help Jamie put the shirt on and find a tiny pair of jeans. Jamie flopped down on his back and kicked his feet up to help Tyler push the pants on him. “Ready for food?” he asked once Jamie was back on his feet and Tyler had try to flatten down his messy hair.

“Yes! Ready! Want chocolate!”

“Chocolate for breakfast? In what world do you live, huh?” Tyler picked him up and threw him over his shoulder to walk him to the kitchen.

The baby shrieked and babbled even after Tyler dropped him on the counter right next to Jordie. This seemed encouraging enough to Jordie that he softly started talking to Jamie. “You want that chocolate spread on your toast?”

“Yes!”

“Alright, bud!”

“An’ Jor! I wan’see the cows! You no come with, but I’mma see the cows with Tyler! All the cowies and the horsies!”

“Oh yeah!” Tyler pipped in, remembering to ask Jordie. “You know what that’s about?”

Jordie turned to Tyler with a knowing look and a grin. “That, my friend, means you are going to the rodeo with this little one!” then he chuckled and whispered closer to Tyler’s ear. “I’m actually glad I don’t have to go.”

“Why would you –”

“RODEOOOO!!!” Jamie screeched making Tyler wince.

Jordie snickered and busied himself with making Jamie’s breakfast and the baby kept talking non-sense the whole time. He calmed down only when he was settle at the dinning table with his plate piled with pieces of toast and a plastic cup of juice in front of him. While Jordie was making two breakfast sandwiches on bagels for himself and Tyler, he told the stories of past baby Jamie’s episodes at the rodeo.

“So it’s a pretty low key thing right? ‘Cause we got out of the playoffs last night and I’m not sure it would be great PR to be seen around like that…”

“Right. But it’s super small and it’s in the middle of the day so it’s not busy. And people will never recognize him, so you can always play the cousin card or something like that to explain why you have a kid around. Like bummer my hockey season is over but I still gotta entertain the little one kinda thing.”

Tyler nodded.

“He loves it and he will be really easy to look after. Well, most of the time he is easy, but at the rodeo you will definitely have an easy time. I worry more about the locker cleanout tomorrow…”

And Tyler had totally forgot about that.

“What are we gonna do?” Tyler asked, but Jordie only shrugged.

“I’ll deal with his stuff and you can dazzle the medias or something. They’ll notice but maybe we can convince them not to make a big deal out of it. And we have the BBQ thing at Sharpie’s after, so we should wait until there to really let the guys see him. They’ll coo a lot and wanna play with him so it’s better if we keep it out of the arena.”

Tyler blinked a few times, thinking about all the things Jordie said. Jordie didn’t usually say that much in such a small amount of time. “You are good at this. The Jamie-being-a-baby thing, I mean. He’s fine, right?”

“Yeah,” Jordie said with a fond smile. “Get him to Fort Worth and we’ll make him some mac n’ cheese tonight and he’ll be the happiest baby.” He put a plate in Tyler’s hand and motioned so they would join Jamie at the table.

…

I didn’t take too long to get Jamie settle in the car seat in the back of his car. He was babbling and flailing a lot, and he was in a really good mood.

The rodeo was indeed a low key thing and, as expected, they were not bothered even once. They sat high in the bleachers and Jamie screeched a lot every time a cowboy came out on his horse to run around after a cow or a calf.  The happiest baby, indeed.

Once the event was over, Jamie clapped his little hands with so much enthusiasm it was almost too endearing for Tyler’s heart. They walked around and Jamie got high-fives from all the competitors hanging around the rodeo grounds. He got to pet some of the animals and sat on a calf’s back long enough for Tyler to take a picture (and maybe he set that as his wallpaper right away). He then wriggled his hands towards Tyler so he would pick him up again. He cooed a lot and dropped his head on Tyler’s shoulder, rubbing his face on his shirt.

“You tired, baby?” Tyler asked him in a gentle voice.

“Huh huh,” Jamie tried to denied, but he yawned at that exact moment.

“We are having mac n’ cheese for dinner. Wanna nap on the way home so when you wake up it’s time to eat?”

“No, I wanna eat now! Hungry!”

“You want a snack?”

“Yes! Please?”

“Sure, let’s look around a little.”

Tyler walked around the rodeo grounds for a while, and Jamie kept yawning on his should and he was visibly dropping. He found some chicken nuggets he could easily feed Jamie with while he walked back to the car.

It was no surprise that Jamie slept all the way home and only woke up when Tyler dropped him – even if he was super gentle – on the couch. Jordie had greeted them in the doorway but hadn’t said a thing yet. Jamie grabbed the blanket Tyler was handing him and snuggle in it. He looked happy enough to be left there, so Tyler stood from where he was crouched next to the couch and walk back to Jordie.

“So how was the rodeo?”

“It was nice. Kind of a slow day for them, like you said, so we didn’t get any attention. He had some nuggets, but I promised him mac n’ cheese for dinner.”

“Oh yeah that’s alright, we’ll do that. He was good though?”

“Totally. Didn’t get cranky or anything. D’you know what we’ll do for tomorrow.”

“Yes, I called a trainer and Chris will look after him while we clean both our stuff and his. We’ll pick him up to go to Sharpie’s. The team will announce that Jamie is not available and not to worry about not seeing him so that should be fine, too.”

That sounded like a pretty good plan and Tyler nodded, relieved.

…

Except that neither of them planned for that tantrum Jamie could pull when they tried to hand him to the trainer. They managed. But they had a hard time taking care of stuff while they could hear the screaming and the crying across the hall.

Finally, finally they picked him up and dropped a weirdly smug baby in the car site to drive to Sharpie’s.

“Hey squirt. What’s up?’ Jordie asked him, only slightly suspicious.

“’thing! Don’t like Chris. But you comed back now! Where we go?”

“We are gonna see the team. You’ll come with me say hi to the guys?” Tyler turned around in his seat to look at Jamie while Jordie walked around the car to get in the driver’s seat. 

“Yesss!” Jamie shrieked.

When they got to the Sharp’s house and Tyler picked up Jamie from the backseat, his attitude had changed a little bit. When he heard the music and the sound that they could hear coming from the backyard, he frowned a little.

“Hey it’s okay bud. It’s just the guys, remember?”

“Yeah…” he warbled weakly, his face smushed in Tyler’s shoulder.

Tyler followed Jordie around the house to reach the backyard. “So I told some of the guys about this so it’s not a complete freakshow,” he informed Tyler over his shoulder. “I told them not to come to him all at once.”

“I see Sharpie?” Jamie pipped up.

“Sure, we can see Sharpie first, Jame,” Tyler answered softly.

When they reached the yard, Tyler looked for his older teammate who he found – of course – next to the grill. If Tyler totally noticed all their teammate’s freezing when they got in, Jamie seemed to only focus on Sharpie. He pulled on the neck of Tyler’s shirt while excitedly pointing at Sharpie. They reached the deck and Tyler gently put Jamie on his feet, so he could wobble up to Sharpie. As soon as his teammate spotted the baby and took him up in his arms, Tyler exhaled slowly and turned around to face the other guys.

First, he noticed that Jordie was already talking with a small group, but he definitely left the younger, awed and eager to play with their baby captain guys for him to _talk_ to. He walked toward them and offered them a fist to bump. When a grand total of zero fist bump were received, Tyler snapped his fingers in their face.

“Hey! Eyes on me for a second. I _know_ this is exciting and so, so weird, but guys. Don’t freak him out.”

The guys seemed to focus on him at the idea of freaking Jamie out. “Ugh?” Klinger asked unintelligently.

“Don’t go see him, _please,_ ” Tyler begged a little. “He’ll come play with you. I know he will, because he talked about it in the car, but he is super shy and–“

“Why is our captain a infant?” Curtis interrupted him, a little bewildered, and the other guys nodded at that and all turned to look at Jamie again. The kid was currently babbling Sharpie’s ear off, all giggly and beaming. “And why is he _happy_?”

“Well thank you for the vote of confidence, but I assure you I can keep a baby happy. And he is not an infant, for God's sake.” But then Tyler took a deep breath and turned away to have his back to Jamie. “I know, it’s weird. He hasn’t been like that all the time though. Well, I mean happy, because he has been a baby for three days, so since, like, the night after we got our asses handed to us by the Jets.”

“Oh it’s the stress thing,” Klinger said and Tyler frowned at him.

“You know this happens to Jamie?”

“Oh no. Not to Jamie, I didn’t know. But I’ve seen it,” he shrugged. “They feel better after. It’s good to be a kid for a while and be super happy and taken care off.”

“You think Jamie turned because he wanted to be happy?” Curtis frowned.

“Well maybe not happy. But it could be to not worry about something that’s bothering him,” Klinger explained, shrugging.

Tyler hummed and turned to look at Jamie, just in time to see him wobbled across the lawn to reach him.

“Ty! Ty! Ty! Sharpie say he get hockey!”

“Hockey?” Tyler questioned, but then he saw Sharpie walk out of the house with a handful of mini-sticks and bouncy balls. “You wanna be on my team, Jame??”

“Yes, Ty! Yes, yes, yes!”

That’s how Tyler, baby Jamie and Klinger started playing mini-sticks hockey across the lawn against Curtis, Oleksiak and Brett. All the adults were playing on their knees, which was a pretty big disadvantage and the baby was actually good, if a little wobbly.

They played, then they ate. And Jamie crashed pretty soon after that. Jordie barely had time to wipe up some condiment from his face before Jamie snuggled in Tyler’s shirt and yawned. They didn’t have to leave just yet, as it was the last night with the team before the summer – and the trades, and the signings – so Tyler settle with Jamie in his arms, talking with some of the guys.  After a while, someone brought him a blanket to wrap the baby in and they kept talking around the deck and the pool until midnight.

Around that time, though, the tiredness of the end of the season seemed to catch up on all of them and everyone started to yawn. The parade of “good night”s and “good summer”s started. Tyler and Jordie, considering they had the baby, and had had the baby for a few days now, were in the first ones to call it a night.

At home, Jordie motioned so that Tyler would follow him up to the Benn’s apartment. Tyler shrugged and did so.

“You guys should sleep here. So he’s in his stuff, I don’t know if it can help,” Jordie explained in a small voice.

And that was a good idea. So Tyler softly said goodnight and walked down the hallway to push Jamie’s bedroom door open with his foot. Jamie was wearing decent sleeping clothes – a long sleeves cotton shirt and sports shorts – so he dropped him gently on the bed. While he was getting ready for bed, Jamie rolled around a little, so to get in bed Tyler had to push him a little.

“Little bug. Move a little, will ya?” he whispered. He settled the both of them after a while and while Jamie kept sleeping, Tyler had to look around for a little before sleep finally came to him.

…

The next morning, Tyler got woken up by knees in his kidney – nice – and after breakfast Jordie and him took the baby to a small park down their street. From there, their only objective was to keep the baby happy, they guessed. They played with him, they got him to eat his favorite food and they let him sleep with – on – Tyler at night. Maybe a day or two more of this and they hoped they would get their Jamie, the adult one, back.


	2. Of Fate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was split in two chapters for my own convenience and I apologize! This second part is shorter, but it made sense? Anyway, thank you for reading!

Eventually, after a few days of toddler entertainment, Jamie did turn back to his adult self. It happened during the afternoon, while he was napping his in bedroom while Tyler and Jordie were watching a movie in the living room. They were actually watching the end of Cars they had started with the baby before he crashed for his nap. 

They heard tumbling coming from down the hallway, but loud tumbling, like, heavier tumbling. They both turned around to look over the back of the couch just in time to see Jamie turn the corner in all his adult glory. Well that was in Tyler’s words anyway. 

Jamie didn’t say a thing and came to sit between them on the couch. Tyler took a closer look at his face: while he was frowning at the choice of movie, Tyler could identify the traits that Jamie kept from his childhood. He felt a little twist in his heart at the thought that the baby was gone, but he was also glad that his best friend was back. Maybe now he could figure out what had triggered the turning in the first place. 

It took the whole day the next day before anything remotely close to the subject was brought up. Of course, for Jordie, only the trigger of the age changing was of interest because he knew about all the rest. But to Tyler, all about that experience was new. He spent the night at his own place but spent all waking hours with them out of habit, but also a little out of worry. His captain, best friend and not not crush had turned into a toddler for almost a week. Of course, he would stay closer. 

But now that the season was done, that the cleanout day and the official team barbeque were over, the guys were starting to leave town to head towards various vacation locations or go home. While Tyler didn’t have plans set, he was starting to poke around his network to maybe figure something out. 

He was texting Tyler – the inferior Tyler – about a potential spot to go: actually, they were suggesting very, very random places until they could agree on the potential of one of them. Easter Island, Nepal, Malta, Galapagos… They were debating the merits of Vanuatu when Jamie dropped on the couch right next to Tyler and, with his face almost lying of his shoulder, read along on the screen. 

“What’s up with… Vanua– What’s that? Is it a restaurant?”

“Hum?” Tyler lifted his head and looked sideways only to get caught looking crossed eyed because of the proximity. “Oh, no, It’s an island somewhere around Australia I think?” Jamie scoffed at that, probably impressed by Tyler’s geography knowledge, or maybe he was laughing at him, too. “I don’t know, it’s just some place Tyler – um, Brownie – was suggesting we go for a few weeks. Obviously, Nepal would be way better.”

That made the smile disappear on Jamie’s face and his features got tense, which made Tyler freeze immediately. They had all been a little on edge about any topic that could’ve been a trigger. Could that be it?

“Hey,” Tyler said softly, shutting down the phone screen and putting the thing down. “We always travel in the summer, yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah I know. Go home, travel, train, friends. It’s what you do…” Jamie said with a tight, uneasy voice. 

“Jame… It’s what you do too, right? You go home with Jordie, you spend time with your family, you travel a little, visit friend. That’s what you do in the summer too?”

“Yeah,” he said with that voice again, but this time also looking down and away from Tyler. 

“Jamie,” Tyler said softly. “What’s up?”

“It’s just that. You’ve had such a good season. And if this summer you… I mean if you. Party, or something. Like everything is so right here and it was so good.”

Tyler was astonished for a few seconds. 

“Are you. Are you afraid I’ll fuck something up during the summer and screw up what we’ve built here this past season?”

“I mean…”

“Jamie. It’s not the same, now. I’ve. I mean, I’ve not grown or anything but. I don’t wanna fuck it up, because I think it’s very good, too, what we’ve got here. I won’t go and fuck it up.” Something came up in his mind as he was saying that. “Wait. Is that why you turned? Because you thought that when I would leave Dallas for the summer I would go and do some party shit that would get me traded again?”

Jamie didn’t talk, kept looking down. “It’s. Well, yeah, something like that, I guess.” 

“But I won’t okay. I swear. That won’t happen again. I’m good here, I love it and I wouldn’t wanna risk losing it by leaving. I swear I won’t.”

“I know, I know. I’ve known since the beginning that you’ve got lotsa friends all over and that summer is your time to hang out with them. And I trust you when you say you wanna stay and will not fuck it up. I really do, Ty. But now that you’re, like, probably days away from leaving I was just. I dunno. Nervous. Scared.”

“I mean. I don’t really have plans yet. So it’s not like I have to be leaving in a few days, or even a few weeks. My mom and my sisters will probably want me to stop by but—” Tyler carefully tried to peak around Jamie’s shoulder to look at his face. “I could maybe stay here for a while, if you are too?” he asked tentatively. 

Jamie looked up. “But your friend? Brown?”

Tyler laughed, almost giggling. “He’s trying to convince me to go to Vanuatu. We were way way apart on what we wanted to do anyway.” 

“But there’s only me here. In Toronto you have–“

“Jamie,” Tyler cut him. “I would stay, if you wanted me to, so we could hang out out here longer. I’m sure Texas has cool shit to offer that we can’t do during the season.” Tyler grinned. “Six Flags over Texas, y’all?” he added with his best impression of the Texan accent.

“But that would keep you away from–“

“Nothing. From nothing, Jamie. I wanna stay here if you’re staying. Brownie can go crash in the Pacific by himself.” He bumped his shoulder with Jamie’s, maybe lingering a little, and grinned while he pucked up his phone and unlocked it. 

i hope your lack of answer means youre looking it up, the last text from Brownie read.

nope. nvm im staying here a little longer. grab luch in gta late summer instead, he typed, and showed Jamie. 

Jamie smiled softly at him. “Can we go to dinner, too?”

“Yeah. We always go to dinn—”

“But like. A date.”

“You wanna go on a date. With me.”

Jamie nodded, shy again. 

“Was this all a plan to woo me?” Tyler asked, disbelieving. 

“No. Yes. Not the baby part. That was really just stress and trust me I didn’t want it to happen while you were around. But since we are here for a few more weeks maybe… Like asking you to hang out this summer was more the plan.”

“Does this plan have more steps? Are people involved? Wait. Does Jordie knows about this? Did he know why you turned into a kid because he knew about The Plan.”

“Okay, no. The Plan is not really a plan-plan. Don’t make a thing.”

“Of course it’s a thing. Lemme make a Google Doc with this and–“

“Shut up,” Jamie said, but he was grinning, so it had no heat in it. 

The heat was all over Tyler’s face, though. The grinning was contagious and soon they found themselves staring at each other sporting huge smiles. 

“So I know about the Dinner Date – trademark – now but for tonight can we just order takeout and cuddle with a movie?”

“Just a normal night, then!”

“No it’s special!”

Jamie looked at him and raised an eyebrow. 

“Okay maybe I was up to something, too. Cuddling is cool,” Tyler said with an innocent smile, batting his eyelashes at Jamie’s face and putting his head down on his shoulder.

Jamie shrugged him off, laughing, but was quick to throw an arm around Tyler’s shoulder and pull him back close.

**Author's Note:**

> Un-Beta-ed and English is my second language, please be nice? :)
> 
> Thank you for reading and any comments would make my day! 
> 
> You can find me on [Tumblr](http://delaying-the-game.tumblr.com) ♥ :)


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